Spizzzarko

I've killed myself over the last year to lose 30 pounds and now you're telling me to get fat?!?! I don't want no ghetto booty Wing loading dude! When you get on the JVX next season you will want it.

"What about those who have no desire to compete?" Then they should have no desire to comment on how the events are ran.

I feel that the swoop venue is about to make a radicle change in the near future. The "Classic" events of speed, distance, and accuracy as we know them will probably not be held in those formats for much longer. Like it or not, those events are pretty borring and I'm sure that spectator events are going to be the way of the future. I'm sure Lord Slaton had the freestyle accuracy, straight line team speed, and his other events last season as a test. Nobody really complained (except a few people here online who did not compete) and the events were fairly exciting to watch, so I bet you can expect quite a bit more of it in the future. I don't know if Lord Slaton has plans to change the CPC format, and I don't think the rules should be changed from this past year, but in my mind the classic distance, speed, and accuracy is getting lame. Frost brings up an interesting point about keeping the competitors below the gates. This of course would reduce the dramatic distances that these dudes are currently getting by two means: 1. The pop up and sail technique would be severly limited. 2. The competitor would really have to be carefull with his or her slingshotting technique to prevent from climbing to much. This would result in forcing the competitor to bring less power into the course. If we were to have this rule in place first of all how would you judge it? You would need to have a judge looking straight down the lane at the top of the gates. This adds personelle and costs to the event not to mention the subjectivity of a human judge. You could use electronic measures, but again it adds quite a bit of cost and complexity to the system. I'm sure very few DZ's are willing to front the added costs for this type of system in addition to the costs of running the entire event. I'm sure that Frank the DZO of Mile Hi would tell you that he didn't make much if any money compared to the amount of money that he has invested for all the events that he has hosted in the past. Let's continue to follow this idea to it's logical end here. If we are limiting how high a competitor can climb in the distance rounds then what is to stop us from limiting modifications to canopies? Sure we can all get RDS's and Blue lines (Call Mel for Blue lines. You will NOT be dissapointed), but competing against highly modified canopies from the manufacturer is unfair because the general public can not attain such a canopy. This point has been debated here online many times before, but I still feel strongly that if you cannot purchase the modification from a manufacturer or alternate source then you should not be able to compete with it. I'm all for evening out the playing field, but limiting technique (Climb and sail) instead of the wing (tripple layered bottom skin, no bridle attachment point, different line trims, and line attachment point materials sewn into the seams) is not how we should be moving forward in this sport if you ask me.

Not a problem. Look me up when you are land locked in Colorado.

Fuck yea man... Steve and I have both taken out quite a bit of a swoop course. I took out almost half of a speed couse in a cpc round, and hit the ground hard. That was almost two years ago. I still feel the pain today. Don't be in a hurry to be a pro swooper. The chicks are magnetically drwn to Steve because he is a pro swooper, but he is the only one out there getting the trim because of it. haahhaa

Hi... How you doin'? Either way you look really nice. Grant

Your so bright I will call you "Son".

Dave is right man... If I knew then 1/4 of what I know now I would be so far ahead of where I am today. Remember the more proper coaching you get now the better off you will be down the road. You guys have it lucky... You can pay for the coaching and get the knowledge that the experts have in a relatively small number of jumps. The experts of today had to go out and learn all this shit through blood sweat booze and tears. Don't buy an RDS get a plane ticket to CA, or FL instead. It will pay off in the long run tenfold. My name is George Zimmerman and I guarrantee it!!!

These kids now a days... When I was young they only teradactyls as canopies and if you pissed one of them off they would eat ya! You also had to keep the boulder in front of the cave door so the sabre tooth tigers didn't eat you! Ohhhhh wait a minute... I'm only 29, not 40 something and Canadian like Steve... ohhh shit! you know I'm just yanking your chain Steve. You two young guys need to get some canopy coaching in the worst way. It doesn't help that you are away from the canopy mega centers like Perris / Elsinore, Mile Hi, and Deland. If you are serious about this then take a vacation and come over and get some training. It will help you out 1 BILLION times more than this forum. The internet is to nebulous to learn much of anything. Besides this is a practicle sport instead of one of mind power like chess or comic book collecting. The only collecting I'm doing in my advanced age is collecting dust. Damn I am the funniest guy I know, and I just crack myself up!

Mel, Is there any way to get a tear drop shaped line? You and I both know that a tear drop shape has about 40% less drag than a round shape. If the line was able to keep laminar flow attached then drag reduction would be phenominal! Even if it were a fatter line but shaped it could possibly create less drag than a thinner round line. Things that make you go hmmmmm. BTW are you and Joe planning on coming back out to Co this year? Ryan and I would enjoy having another fat bastard heart attack pizza and some beers again. Grant

I know it has been hotly debated here before, but I think that changing position under the wing will change it's pitch some how. If you look at Nick's 665' swoop video, he slingshots and when the canopy is about done climbing on it's own he starts to aggressively lean forward in the harness and then goes to toggles. I think the leaning forward prevents the canopy from descending at that moment in the swoop and he is able to get that much more out of his toggles. Remember, the longest swoop is a function of having the most speed through the gates combined with being the most efficient (not introducing any extranious drag) in your flare. If these dudes are able to get the canopy to pitch up without giving toggle or rear riser input then they are able to go that much further in their swoop. Now I also think body position in the turn has quite a bit to do with the overall result too. !CAUTION ADVANCED TECHNIQUE DISCUSSION EMMANENT DO NOT DO THIS THINK ABOUT THIS, CONSIDER THIS, OR OTHERWISE FANTASIZE ABOUT COMPREHENDING THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE COMPETENT INSTRUCTION, AND 5 BILLION JUMPS. IN ADDITION, DO NOT SUE ME IF YOU FUCK YOURSELF UP BY THINKING, CONSIDERING, OR FANTASIZING ABOUT THE FOLLOWING! I feel that in the turn if you are big with your body you will have more drag and it will prevent your from moving forward under the canopy. This helps you three fold. 1. Not moving forward under the canopy keeps the canopy in the dive longer. 2. The longer the canopy is in the dive the more speed you build. 3. Having your body extended moves your center of suspended weight further way from the canopy. This means your mass has further to travel so it creates more power. Now, we should not keep our bodies fully extende through out the swoop, because we will soon enter a point in the swoop where we want to eliminate as much drag as possible. It is my hypothesis that you should be tucking up into a tight ball (bring your knees to your chest) as you are slingshotting yourself through the gates. I think this will help the sling shot effect because you will have to give less input on the rears to get the same desired effect from the sling shot. Why is this? Think about it, you are tucking up, and now bringing your weight closer to the canopy. Now you do not have to pendulum as far (this makes the pendulum effect faster so you can carry more speed into the climb out) and you can create less drag causing the pendulum. From this point on no matter what you do the canopy is slowing down and you have a finite amount of energy to use before you run out and it quits flying. It then becomes an exercise of being as efficient as possible and creating as little drag as you need to fly to your point of impact. Let's talk a little about sight picture in your swoop now. I feel that very few of us actually pick a point and do everything we can to fly towards it like classic accuracy competitors do. Well swooping is very similar to classic acc,but instead of coming straight down like in classic acc we are flying straight forward. Maybe if after you pendulum and your canopy is no longer climbing, you pick a point down the lane to swoop at and focus on this point you can fly more effeciently. To do this you can focus on this point as you continue to flare, and if that point is going lower in your sight picture then you are going to overfly it. Corrective action for this would be to either choose a new focal point or give less input allowing the canopy to sink more. Conversly if the focal point is getting higher in your sight picture then you are going to undershoot and you may want to add more lift with a control input so that you fly as close to that point as possible. The classic acc competitors use this technique to see if they can make it to there target. Eventually you will learn the angle that you need to be choosing your focal point as you learn more and more about your canopy's flight characterists, and as you become more consistant with your power management through the gates. No matter what turn you are doing or even if you are swooping try to keep every aspect of your landing the same, from the pattern that you fly, the amount of turn to final that you do, to the turn rate and entry altitude. The more you keep things the same the more variables you take out of the equation, and the more you can focus on one aspect or another of your swoop. !THIS ENDS MY DIATRIBE OF BODY POSITION FOR THIS POST. REMEMBER, ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT YOURSLEF FROM FLYING INTO THE EARTH AT A HIGH RATE OF SPEED. DO NOT FUCK UP, AND DO NOT RELY ON MY HYPOTHESIS' TO GET YOU INO THE PST AS iM AM NOT A PST COMPETITOR. THAT IS ALL!

Unless you light your farts while under one

CB canopies are pretty much for those into swooping really far and fast. Other than that they are not the best all around canopy's for every day jumping. Beezy, I have heard about a CB canopy made a little bigger than 120, and that two people landed under it. Now what's that all about? Did you see in the skydiving mag that NZ made a 280 FX tandem main for testing? I always liked the FX. It was a fun canopy, and it opened pretty good for me.

True that! If either of the thin methods (yours and mine) were used with the new 99 reserve the container would be getting to a point where the pilotchute would be causing a bulge. You can only compress a spring loaded pilot chute so much. Do you see my point?

Cross bracing keeps the canopy flatter and allows a smaller canopy to produce more bottom end lift due to less distortion of the canopy in the flare. So in essence you can have a smaller canopy that will go a lot faster (less drag) and still have the flareing power of a bigger canopy. Cross Braced canopies are pretty much a non advantage unless you are loading them higher. so a cross braced spectre 190 loaded at 1.2:1 would do you no good.

With the possibility of PD releasing it's new reserve in the near future it leaves us the skydiving consumers with more questions than answers. I am posting this thread to publicly ask these questions and hopefully get a response from the good folks at PD. So if you have questions and answers about the reserve post them, but if you cannot offer factual information about it please refrain. I would like this thread to stay informational in nature, so please no PD bashing or name calling. In the skydiving magazine (Dec 06) issue there was an article telling us a little about the reserve, and if you haven't read it I suggest that you do. It is also a good magazine to keep in your bathroom to read while you "take care of business" so on to the questions: 1. The skydiving article mentioned that PD was making this reserve in sizes of 99-143. Why are they not making bigger sized canopies? This seems out of place to me because I'm fairly sure not to many rig manufacturers are making rigs sized for a reserve smaller than a 99. With the new fabric the 99 should pack up like an 80 series canopy. This will either have a soft reserve pack job, or force manufacturers to create new sizes. Honestly I do not think a soft reserve pack job is a good thing, because it could allow things to shift around in the container, or have a sloppy appearance. Now lets talk about the reserve sizes. There are two ways to make a container long and skinny (measured from yoke to BOC and from back pad to pins side) like the old jav or shorter and fatter like the new jav. If the manufacturer makes the rig long and skinny for a small canopy like the 99R the main container would have to become very long and skinny. This would be a funky looking main bag and could require some creative packing techniques to evenly distribute the material through out the bag. Now if the manufacturer makes the rig short and fat (the ladies favorite) then this will be a really short rig and a dude like me may have a problem reaching the main handle if it is placed in teh middle of my back. I currently jump a jav RSK-1 with a pd-113 over a 96 velocity and some times it floats up a little towards my neck in free fall causing more of a stretch for me at pull time. This may not be an issue for all people, but I can see where it could lead to being an issue in the future. I think now the general idea with this new reserve is to be able to get a bigger canopy into a smaller container. This is a great concept and I whole heartedly agree with the idea. I just ordered a new container to fit my jvx. in this container I can get a 143R packed up into it, but according to skydiving mag PD is stopping at the 143. Why not make the bigger sized new reserves and market to what most of the skydiving public is jumping? I just do not see more than 25% or the skydivers jumping reserves smaller than a 126R and some of the ones that I see jumping that sized reserve probably need to be flying a 160 or bigger. 2. The skydiving article mentioned a change in the flight and flare performance of the new canopy. What are these changes and how will they affect the flight characteristics. Also if these changes are good enough to sell with the new reserves does PD have any plans on changing the old material reserves to match these flight characteristics? Personally I have landed several reserves, and by far I feel that the PD reserve had the best flight, and flarring traits. I would be interested in demoing one to see how they changed it up. 3. The article also mentioned that the new fabric strength is less than that of the thicker older material. How has PD changed the design to maintain the same TSO rating of the older design? 4. Is PD going to eventually drop production of the old design? I love PD reserves, and I have a couple of actuall rides on them. I do not plan to jump without a PD reserve, as I feel very strongly about having my last chance for survival be padded in my favor. This thread is not meant to bash pd in any way shape or form, but instead to start an open and constructive dialog about the new product. Please keep any information factual instead of speculative if possible when making responses.

In addition to body position facial hair and prom tuxedo's help out too.

Your welcome. I believe that good technique and body position will beat HMA hands down any day of the week. I quite sure those of us with hma could have spent the money on jump tickets and gotten better results , but HMA or Technora is nice. I also feel that the next big thing will be a revision of body position during the turn and in the actuall swoop. Look at the pictures of Lord Slaton, Tagle, Nick, and Moledski. They all are changing their body position through out the swoop. I have attached a few pictures to demonstate this. Most of them are leaning way forward in their harness after they get the canopy to climb from the slingshot. I bet there is something to this. Jim even told me that they got some body position perfected at the ground launch place that will help out. We are probably at the limit of the gear, as I do not forsee many new innovations on the gear that we have unless a company steps up and releases the "Z"braced design, so it is technique that needs to be honed now.

I have heard it said that next to jump suit choice and body position that line type is the next biggest drag cause or reduction.

When jumping up here in Colorado UV plays a little more of a factor in things. I'm not a scientist (just an amature gynecologist), but I can tell you that you will get sunburned a hell of a lot faster here in Colorado than in Florida or some other sea level place (anything under 2,000' msl is considered sea level in my book...)

He probably thinks this post was written about him..

She's a man, baby! yea! She's a MAN! Attached is what I mean about Man Boobs. If he was anny fatter he would look like Peter Griffen swooping! hahahaha I have sewn huge pockets onto my jump suits to contain the RDS burrito when removed. I have them on the front of my leg, and it looks like I have a giant package!

And how many Pilot In Command hours do you have?

Yea I have seen my fair share of fucked up things. The human femur is a really big bone, and to see those stick out of the body is not cool. Also having three friends bounce within about a year of each other hasn't helped (Josh, Maryanne, Tony Repasky). Have you gotten over your not taking the JVX to terminal thing yet? I seem to remember you not liking the terminal openings. Did your RDS help out any, and how does your canopy like being flown with all the stuff off? Have you gotten a hybrid JVX or are you still on the ZP model? Stay warm. It is supposed to get really cold here tonight. Arizona, Mexico, Hawaii, or Africa is sounding really nice right now. I'm becoming more and more intollerant of the cold the older I get. hahahaa

I would say it was more due to dirty cables than anything else... I hadn't cleaned them in awhile and they were pretty ugly looking upon closer inspection. Let this be a lesson to all of you to keep your cables clean, and to be more thorough on gear maintenance. I'm sorry your wife had a hard pull, and I would not wish that on any one.